1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to methods and programs for managing print jobs, and in particular, it relates to methods and programs for post-submission custom spooled page printing.
2. Description of Related Art
When a user send a print job of a multi-pages document from a user terminal to a printer, often times the user desires not to print all pages, but only a subset of the pages, of the document. Sometimes the document is printed via a printer driver. Many application menus provide the user with an option of printing, for example, all pages or only certain pages of the documents. For example, FIG. 1 shows a representative screen-shot of a typical software application print menu that provides the options of printing “all” pages or only the “current page”, or specified pages. When a user clicks on the “Property” button, a graphic user interface (GUI) given by a printer driver will appear that provide the user with print options. The user can select the desired option and print the document accordingly.
Other times the document is printed via a print application. Many applications also provide the user with various printing output methods. For example, FIG. 2 shows a representative screen-shot of a GUI of a printer front panel menu provided by a printer driver that provides the options of various output modes, such as a “print” mode, a “secure print” mode, a “save in user box” mode, a “wait” mode, etc. In one or more of these modes (e.g., the “secure print” mode), a print job is stored on the printer for later retrieval by the user and is not immediately printed by the printer, which provide an option to the user to print all pages or only selected pages. As illustrated in another representative screen-shot of the PageScope™ Web Connection application shown in FIG. 3, for a stored print job later retrieved for printing, the application will select “All Pages” as default for the “Output Page” option, but also provide the user a choice to change that default option. A user may accept printing all pages by press or click the “OK” button, or choose to print selected pages by press or click the “Change Output Page” button.
However, in many instances a user may send raw print files, such as a PDF (Portable Document Format) file, an XPS (XML Paper Specification) file, a TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) file, and any other document files that a printer can interpret, directly to the printer, bypassing a printer driver or an application, for direct printing without converting the row print files into a print job written in a PDL (Page Description Language) in the user terminal. This often leaves the user with no control of what page numbers the user wants to print, as illustrated in the exemplary screen-shot a direct print utility for directly sending a print job to a printer shown in FIG. 4. As the result, the entire page range of the print job is printed, which can be time-consuming and wasteful of toner and paper consumption, especially if the print job contains complex rendering data and large number of pages.
Therefore, it would be preferable to have a method and program for post-submission page control of raw print files that are directly sent to the printer without printer driver or utility application.